Matt and Sean talk about Kirk's family legacy and the cost of meeting your heroes in Star Trek SNW Season 4, Episode 8, "Orders of Magnitude." Sam and Jim Kirk learn the truth about their father's stalled career. Kirk pulls a bluff any poker player would love. Uhura earns her battlefield promotion. Sean puts it right up there with "Off Hour.”

Order Sean’s next book, “In the Fields We Thirst” here: https://undecided.link/in-the-fields-we-thirst

Chapters

  • 00:00 - Intro
  • 02:13 - Mailbag
  • 09:22 - Episode Description
  • 09:53 - This Time in History
  • 11:53 - Episode Discussion

Transcript

Intro

Sean Ferrell: In today's episode of Trek in Time, we're talking about. Come on, really? You can do this. And you've been giving us puppets. Yeah, we had a similar conversation a couple weeks ago. We're gonna have it again. Yeah. Cats out of the bag. Welcome everybody, to Trek in Time. This is the podcast that takes a look at Star Trek in chronological stardate order. We're currently in the middle of our original series rewatch, but we've put that on pause as we've moved into strange new worlds. We like to take a look at new shows at the time of broadcast. So once we're done with Strange new Worlds Season 4, we'll return to the original series, finish that up and then move on to the movies and then next gen, and then continue the podcast for the next 20 odd years. Thank you.

Sean Ferrell: Who am I? Sean Ferrell: I'm Sean Ferrell. I'm a writer. I write some sci fi, I write some horror. Matter of fact, I have a horror novel coming out in April of 2027 in the fields we Thirst. Information about that in the description below. It's available for pre order. I hope you'll be interested in checking it out. With me, as always, is my brother Matt. He's that Matt behind Undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact in our lives. And Matt, what's impacting your life today? Matt Ferrell: What's impacting my life today? Sean, you won't believe this. I forgot to watch this episode until this morning. It's very fresh in my head and I, yeah, I'm very, I'm looking forward to talking about this one for sure.

Mailbag

Sean Ferrell: Yeah, I've. I've worked it into my schedule that I watch the episodes on Wednesdays because when I do forget to watch it, I still have a day because there was a schedule a while ago where I would just watch it the morning of. And I was like, that'll be great. And there were a few too many times where I was just like, oiky coykey, I can't go to work. I gotta watch this episode. So. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, hoiky koiki is what I yell out when I realize that. So today we're going to be talking about orders of magnitude. This is the eighth episode of the fourth season of Strange New Worlds. It was Originally broadcast on September 10, 2026. We'll also be talking about what was going on in the world at the time of original broadcast. But before we get into that, we always like to visit the mailbag, see what you've had to say about previous episodes. Matt, what did you find for us this week? Matt Ferrell: We we have a bunch of ones from the episode off hour. The episode. We like this one. We liked it. Comments like from Happy Flappy Farm. Great episode. Totally agree. But it bothers me that Nurse Chapel wasn't wearing goggles or some kind of eye protection and gloves. My suspension of disbelief was pushed too far with that detail. I was gonna say sometimes there are little details in a show that you're watching and you're totally into the show, but there's something ridiculously small that just completely pulls you out. And I can completely understand that. Sean Ferrell: And that's always been the case with Star Tre. Whenever there's been any kind of scene where it's just like a doctor saying like we're going to have to do this surgery and it's really tricky. And then they cut to it and it's just McCoy with a pepper shaker going and it's just like, okay, how about adding like, could somebody bring me some scrubs? Just a little thing like that goes a long way.

Matt Ferrell: And then we had some more comments. There was a lot of people that seriously, they loved this episode. We had comments like Mark Loveless writing off hour was one of the best Star Trek episodes regardless of series. Amazing. This is what fans, true, deep fans of Star Trek want to see. Yes, Mark, agree 1,000%. And on that same note, we have Kevin Jelick who wrote in and said this was my favorite episode of the season. But I have liked all of the episodes, including the gimmick episodes, some more than others. Each of the stories had character development for at least one of the characters and move them along to where they need to be. And if you look past the way they show it and focus on how the character is evolving rather than getting caught up in the gimmick. I think episodes eight and 10, which we're talking about today, number eight, are also really strong episodes this season, so I hope you enjoy those as well. Spoiler I like this one a lot. Okay, last comment from Babarudra. I suggested a Stargate show months ago. Let's get this going. Just a comment on your editing. I'm reading this one because I feel this one it seems like you went further than usual in your silence removal. I don't feel like it was ever quite as jarring as it was today. And before I go on the rest of the comment, yes, Baba Rudra, I used a feature. We recorded this in Riverside and Riverside has some built in editing tools and I Decided to tick one of the boxes on the editing helper that was remove ums and uhs. I will never tick that box again because I was basically undoing the damage of that for most of the edit. So, yeah, things were cut a little too aggressively. So I won't be using that ever again.

Sean Ferrell: I wanted to mention to you that I ended up opening up, I think that episode just like I was on the page with our videos and that episode started playing and when I heard my voice, I was like, why do I sound like I'm talking so fast? It sounded a little sped up. Including and this. I mean, classic. Like I don't sound in a recording the way I sound in my head. I didn't. But I think my voice was a little higher than it actually is. I don't know that I sound as squeaky as I did.

Matt Ferrell: Okay. No, no, no. It was not sped up or anything like that. It was literally just like, you know, hey, have pauses in the way you talk. Those pauses were like just all gone. And it was just like there was like no breaths. It was just one sentence running into the next one. It's very aggressive. So I won't be doing that. So going on Bob Rouge's comment, I agree that this was a great episode. One thing I've considered about the gimmicky episodes in prior series, Star Trek has toyed with strange, weird themes to reach other parts of the family audience. Maybe the gimmicks were part of them trying to do that. As has been said in shorter seasons, it wastes episodes for those of us wanting the story to move forward. But they probably do want to expand who watches. You've mentioned in the past how very Doctor who this season has seemed. I have to take your word on that. I watched the Doctor who up until Peter Davidson. I think I watched an episode or two during David Tennant and was like, what the ever loving F was this? And refuse to watch more. But apparently many absolutely love the newer shows. Star Trek may touch on what we love or loved about Star Trek, but it'll probably eventually become a show. We ask what the ever loving F is this. I really like this comment from Bob Arudra because it does touch on something I think is important. Tastes change over time. People's tastes in the 1960s were very different from where they are today. So Star Trek has always evolved. Next Gen, Deep Space Nine, Voyager were of a theme and a style of that era that was very different from the original series and very different from what we're seeing today. So things have to evolve and change. So we can't, like, if you're, if you're a fan of the original series, you're going to hate the latest stuff because it's so radically different.

But we have to be a little more accepting of let them try things. But as we've talked about before, a lot of these things have that. We just wanted to do stuff that was fun for us and not taking Star Trek fans into account. And you can feel that jarring back and forth with episodes like we're about to talk about today. So I agree with Bobber Bridger though. It's a good point to keep in mind.

Sean Ferrell: Yeah, I think that is a very good point. And I also think that that's the tension in this podcast, which is we are trying to assess a thing that is very much of this moment and include the context of the moment in our assessment. And that's very, very hard to do. We have an easier time analyzing, I think the older programs and that will include like Next Gen and Deep Space Nine and Voyager because enough time has passed that we're going to really be able to look at them as historical documents. And looking back at the era that they were made in is also at a distance. And right now we're talking about these programs in a way that there's a trick to it. And as you said, yeah, you, the taste of the moment may be different and you and I may be those middle aged guys standing there saying who took my soup and changed the recipe? That's not right. And like, but the people who make soup are like, no, everybody likes tarragon. Now we gotta add tarragon to the soup. And so it's, it's a little bit of. I, I don't think you and I have tread into get off of my lawn territory yet. And I don't think our viewers and listeners are there either. But there is also the, the, the pullback I think that you and I are looking for, I know I'm looking for it is, it should still be Star Trek. In some of the episodes. Like in today's discussion, I think we're going to be saying like, yeah, you know what Star Trek is, but some of, some of the other ones, maybe you're not selling enough Trek in your adventure. So thank you everybody for those comments. We love getting them and we look forward to seeing what you have to say about this episode as well. So that noise you hear those lights you see flashing. No, it's not me falling in love. It's too Late for that. That's the read alert. It's time for Matt to read the Memory Alpha description.

Episode Description

Matt Ferrell: James Kirk is embroiled in politics of career advancement involving an admiral and Kirk's father.

This Time in History

Sean Ferrell: So as I mentioned at the top of the episode, this episode, episode eight of season four, directed by Sharon Lewis, written by Alan B. McElroy, originally broadcast on September 10, 2026. And if you're wondering what the world was like at the time of original broadcast, well, it's going to seem very familiar because it was what, three weeks ago? That's right. What were you singing along to, Matt? Why, yes, it was. Choosing Texas by Ella Langley. Take it away, Matt. I can't tell you how many times I've watched the video for Choosing Texas, but I can tell you how much I enjoy hearing my brother sing it. And at the movies, guess what, Matt? It's the last time you'll be able to say this was the number one film. That's right, Spider Man, Brand New Day was the number one film as it became one of the most successful movies ever to hit the box office. Doing something that I will be honest, I didn't think many movies would be able to do anymore. Hold that number one spot and make, holy cow, a lot of money. And on television, I won't belabor this. It's tricky to know what streaming numbers are because the companies that put out these products on television don't want to share. So instead, I'm looking at what's recently released and appearing to be popular according to Rotten Tomatoes. And this week, one of the top rated shows according to their statistics, both critically and with fans, is Netflix's east of Eden. This is a seven episode limited series adapted by Zoe Kazan. It's of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel. It premiered on October 1, 2026. It stars Florence Pugh and Christopher Abbott. It's a multi generational drama exploring themes of good and evil, free will and redemption. And in the news on the New York Times on this day in history, the top story, dueling court rulings leave Missouri's congressional races in chaos.

After losing in two courts and winning in another Missouri officials said they planned to forge ahead with using a congressional map that was redrawn to benefit Republicans. Oh, why would any of that matter? You wonder, Matt? Why would any of that matter? On now to our discussion about this episode, Orders of Magnitude. I feel like I've already kind of like let the cat out of the bag. So I'm going to invite you, Matt, to jump in on this one. What were your feelings overall about this one? And after you share that, what do you think was the biggest leverage point to make you feel that way?

Episode Discussion

Matt Ferrell: Overall, I thought this was a just dynamite episode, but I grew into it. Like, when it started, I had a little bit of a feeling of Ruh Roh because it was. You knew exactly where it was going to go. Because, you know, like, there's certain tropes that Star Trek deals with a lot, and this is one of them. Here comes an admiral that takes charge of the ship and is going to go flying off in the distance and it's going to clearly be not what he seems. So it was kind of like very obvious what it was going to be. But even though I had that kind of a feeling, I was still into it because I was like, oh, this is Star Trek. This is what I'm here for. Even if it's a trope, I know this is gonna be fine. And midway in, I was in John, I was so in, so deep into this episode, I was like, this is. It makes me angry again. They can do it. They know Star Trek and they know how to do good storytelling. And it's like, it doesn't have to be storytelling, Star Trek to be good storytelling. This was just good storytelling. It had the A plot and the B plot were tense and exciting and dissimilar themes around just the whole idea of following orders. Like, what does it mean to follow orders? What's ethical orders? What does it mean to be, can you disobey? Like, is it okay to disobey? And I kept flashing to, like, what we've been going through in modern life right now with the Democrats putting out those videos about you do not have to follow illegal orders. And then the big furor from the Republicans of like, how dare you say that? Which is like, what you care for illegal orders. You have a right to be able to say no. It's like this episode, is that so. It felt very of the moment for the type of story they were telling. It felt very current. It felt like it had something to say. And both plot lines were struggling with this from. In very different ways.

And it pushed things forward in such a Star Trek y way with the characters. Kirk. Sean Ferrell: Kirk. Matt Ferrell: Sean? Sean Ferrell: Yeah.

Matt Ferrell: Why does it feel like Star Trek? You don't get more Star Trek than dealing with Kirk and his father and his father's history and how Kirk is who he is and his brother and like the whole family relationship of who they are and how they. How they kind of see themselves in the Tapestry of Starfleet and as family and what that legacy means and how it informs who they see themselves as that father son relationship, and how both of them kind of hate their father for how absent he was. And then once they kind of understand his father's, their father's perspective, it changes everything. And I was just like, oh, this is, this is just dynamite stuff for, for Kirk to evolve into who we know he is. Like, especially when we. That previous episode where they showed how he screwed up so badly and it's haunting him here. He's making a choice to disobey orders, to do what's right and morally justified. And it's who he is. It's showing who he becomes as a captain. And for me, the whole thing at the end with that one line for me, where he rigged the phasers to make the ship explode. And the Admiral's like, he's got to be bluffing. He's got to be bluffing. At the very end, he looks at Ihura and goes, the security officer says, I was bluffing. And I was like, that's so Kirk. The writers know these characters so well, is that Kirk is a bluffer, he's a poker player, and he does that constantly. And here he is, he's doing it. It's so Star Trek, the whole thing. So you've got ethical dilemma, an ethical moral dilemma at Star Trek, and then there's action and tension and thrilling aspects wrapped around that ethical dilemma for people to talk about it, to be able to have action around it. To me, that's Star Trek and that's why it just like ticked all the boxes.

Sean Ferrell: I, I agree with everything you've just said and I can't agree enough with this episode. It just, it felt like it was operating at the level of is it presenting a moral dilemma in a way that allows for room for debate from both sides? Is it operating from a place where it's driving character? Is it driving character about these characters that are so beloved and well known in a way that feels true to those characters? Is it of the now and the past? Is it Star Trek? And is it also, for lack of a better phrasing, when Star Trek is good, it's good in the way that the best things are good. This, I think, is operating on all those levels where it's operating by raising questions about our current dilemma of leadership in this country, leadership around the world. You mentioned, you know, when is it okay to not follow orders? I would also say another theme here is how do you recognize the threat, how do you recognize the enemy? When is it okay to say, I know innocence will be hurt, but it's okay because in this moment the goal is more important than those innocents. This season has toyed with the phrase the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one or the few. It has played with that multiple times, including in a jokey moment in the puppet episode. Like that one didn't feel earned in this episode. I feel like this episode did a great job of earning all of its self referential moments while also being above all those moments. I think McElroy, who wrote this episode, did a terrific job of wrangling together all these different threads, including referencing back to some of the best of original Trek.

This episode hearkens back to time Travel episode where McCoy gets poisoned by that hypo spray because the medicine that they're using Mbenga uses on Kirk and that they end up he ends up using on the Admiral is The medicine that McCoy gets tainted with and ends up becoming paranoid and jumping through the time portal. So like, okay, they've referenced that episode. They also represent they referenced the episode with the planet killing doomsday machine because in that one you have a commodore who comes in and says, I'm commandeering the ship. I'm taking it out to fight this thing. And it is a game of patient waiting by Spock, waiting for the opportunity to invoke, taking command in exactly the way that this episode references. This episode references the Admiral invoking the rule that allows him to destroy all life on the planet. Kirk does that in an episode in the original series. So they're invoking the exact same order. 24 where it's this, oh boy, it's a heavy hitting order and you don't do it lightly. Kirk himself does that in original series episode. This episode invokes the the very nature of the relationship between Kirk and his son. In Star Trek 2 and Star Trek III, when you have Sam, his brother, say, now that you're a father, you get to understand that sometimes fathers aren't what we wish they were. And immediately I flashed forward to Kirk meeting his son and his son's response is like, you're not the man I wish I had in my life. It is so Trek this episode. From all the reasons you gave around moral dilemmas and being of the time and talking about heavy issues in a way that allows you to be entertained and also debate internally. One of the strengths of this, I think is the fact that again referencing older episodes, this episode references balance of terror in the very threat that they are chasing. This is the Romulans. They show the map where it is.

Here's the pursuit of this craft that we can't see. It is near Romulan space, in balance of terror. When again, a ship shows up. It's destroying colonies. We see in that episode Kirk doggedly go toe to toe with that commander, trying to hunt him down to get him to stop this from happening. And this episode, like all the Best of Strange New Worlds, where you and I have talked about them, about how it reframes some of the moments in the original series in ways that still feels Trek. As I was watching this one, I was like, this is now reframing his dogged pursuit because he is looking at this as I bear some responsibility. This is the ship that got away. I bear some responsibility for them doing what they've done more recently because I played a part in them escaping in the past. And I was just like, holy cow. And this admiral, the way he's playing all of this for. For personal gain, personal need. He. He ruined a man's career because he felt like he was owed that victory. He was owed that battle. And then Sam and Jim Kirk both discovered that their father was a man who did not make any of that personal and kept doing the job he found so important, even as his career permanently stalled out and he was given new assignment after new assignment after new assignment simply to keep him from returning home. So the Admiral, in an attempt to vindicate his own need about his career, effectively harmed another person's family. And now in this moment, he is saying, my family is so important that you should all let me do whatever I want to get revenge. It is an amazing. This is just like I was watching this and just like by the time. And I agree with you completely, at the very beginning of the episode, it took about 10 minutes for me to buy in. I found myself in the first 10 minutes being like, okay, I see what they're doing here. I don't know if it's going to work out.

And by the end of it, I was like, boy, did it work out. This was great. I loved it. I loved it, loved it.

Matt Ferrell: When I add one more thing where you were rattling off all the things that are like Trekkie to you, that are referencing something I want to add, Kobayashi Maru, with Kirk, not only is a pokey poker player and he bluffs. He doesn't believe in the no win scenario. What does he do in this episode? He bluffs, but he plays everybody and he drugs the admiral to get him to go over the top. He's not gonna let this happen by chance. He's not gonna let it. Like, maybe he won't push it too far. I'm going to put him in a scenario where he will have to go too far. I'm going to drug him. He's doing what he did for the Kobayashi Maru, where he cheated. He cheated to beat it. He's the only person that beat it. And he won because he cheated. And here he is essentially cheating. So he's. He's doing exactly what his character has always done, but it's in this new, unique, younger, more brash way of way he's doing it. And it's just. I just love it. I love the nuance they brought out of this. But I also want to circle over to Uhura. I love action Uhura. I love Take Charge Uhura. I love seeing her be super awesome and smart and competent, thinking 10 steps ahead where she's clearly even surprised her colleagues about the way she's like, I'm the communications officer, I can help you. Me, as a fan, I'm watching. I'm like, oh, she's going to try to double cross them. But how's she going to double cross them? I'm curious how she's going to do this. I thought it was really fun to see her doing this kind of against type. It didn't look like it was planned, like the way it was filmed and told. It was like she was just gonna do this. And the captain and everybody else was like, what is happening right now? I love that, that she was willing to take that risk and put herself into danger to do something, I don't know, heroic. Yeah.

So it's like, it was really cool to see how she played that off and how she fought her way out of it, but thought her way out of it as well. So I just. Yeah, I love the B storyline as well. Sean Ferrell: Yeah, the B storyline worked. I thought it was great that it was. At no point did they know that the Enterprise was gone. I thought that was great. It was just like, we are. We are stuck here. We don't know why they're not responding. Our deadline passed. I don't know why they're not showing up. They should have by now, but that means we have to get out of this. I loved that Hemmer was brought up by Uhura in talking with the Andorian and saying, like, I knew an Andorian and I learned a lot from him and I know this and puts it at his feet like you're not living with honor. You're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. And the entire turn of shocking everybody and then it turning into an action sequence. I was like, boy, they really figured out a balance here by giving us actiony storytelling as the B plot, giving us the full philosophical conundrum as the A plot falls right into a pattern that works so well for Trek. It's, you know, you get the best of both worlds, no pun intended.

Matt Ferrell: But the B plot is still dealing with that same theme of, for me, that I was finding around the following orders. What's an ethical order? It's like, here's Uhura disobeying what the captain had just said. We're gonna not give them anything. And she's just on her own going like, I will help you. Which makes it look like to her colleagues that she's about to sell out. And the whole debate between her and the Andorian around what's on her, and he throws it right back in her face. You're willing to give up everything, what you stand for to help your friends. It's like. Like, who are you to be lecturing me? And I thought that was a great back and forth between them. And it was dealing with the same kind of thematic point in a very different way. And I thought. I really enjoyed that.

Sean Ferrell: Yeah, there was one element. There were two things about the Uhura storyline that stood out to me. One I really liked and one I didn't like. The one I didn't like was I never, in this season, bought into her mentorship of the Vulcan as being so important to her. It came across as a little bit like a little melodramatic and a little bit like, why does this feel like it's something from a high school TV show about high school students and somebody won't be their friend and. And she feels wounded and feels an ownership of this other person's life in a way that just didn't feel like it made any sense. I felt like the writing around that throughout the entire season felt weak. So having that come to an end in this episode, I didn't feel like the writing in this moment was great. But I was also relieved that, okay, that storyline is over. The thing I really liked was her battlefield promotion being taken, you know, without knowing that that was coming. Being given a very quiet moment where it's just like, I'm giving you this thing. Congratulations, you did a really great job. How that kind of feels like for her as a character, she started the series as The. I am literally fresh out of the Academy. I don't know what I'm going to do yet. And to have that. This episode, have that moment where she steps into the rank that we're accustomed to seeing her at in the original series, felt really, really good. Strangely, I saw a comment in Reddit which was about her as a character, and somebody was like, does it break anybody else's heart that canonically, Uhura has that original series episode where her mind gets wiped and she has to relearn being a person. And it's got the entire learning how to read with the help of the computer, the library computer and all of that. And I didn't respond on Reddit, but. And I didn't really read any of the responses that were on Reddit.

I just thought to myself, that's the beautiful thing about Headcanon is you can literally just be like, no, that didn't happen. That episode didn't happen. So, like, because when we hold on to canon and we say, like, oh, but they're ignoring the fact that Kirk said X, Y, or Z or Spock, and Kirk once referenced A, B, or C. Yeah, there's those moments of fan debate where you're like, okay, how are the. How are the creators dealing with that? But this. This moment for Uhura where, yeah, canonically that's supposed to happen, but that was just a bad moment in an episode that shouldn't have taken place. It was something that was happening in the 1960s that they were just like, yeah, we're going to do this to this character without any expectation that there would be 60 years later, fans like you and me saying, like, but how do we rectify that? She's technically not the same person. She's the same person. Uhura's great. They're doing a great job with her in this series. And it's by doing such a good job with her in this series, they are doing great. Respectful. And elevating of the character for the original series as well. It really is doing. It's sad to me that Nichelle Nichols is gone to not see what they've done with this character now because really. So good. So good. I also want to point out, Admiral, in this episode, I really like. I thought that they crafted out for one episode, they crafted out a character who reminded me of the Commodore from the Doomsday Machine episode where it's shows up, says, okay, I'm in charge, but you very quickly get a sense of who he is as a character. You get us, like, him walking in and everybody being like, this is the guy. This is our hero. This is the guy we all look up to. Kind of giving us a moment of, oh, this is how people in Next Generation talk about Kirk. Like, oh, Kirk. Like, he's like, he set.

He set the precedent that we all try to live up to. And here are these characters, including Kirk, saying, like, oh, you're the guy. And then to watch the simplicity of the cliche of never meet your heroes play out, it's a real simple thing to do. And it just plays so beautifully in this episode because this character, he's complex. He is. At moments, you can see he's a really good commander. He is in some ways, in moments, he is mentoring, he is patient. He says things to people like. Like, he. He reprimands Kirk for having debated him on the bridge. Now, that's a matter of captain style. Yeah, he does it in private. He doesn't call him out in public. I'm reminded of in the Next Gen episode when Jellico comes in and is given the captain seat. And nobody on the Enterprise can understand why. Why has Kirk. Why has Picard been reassigned? Where is Picard? What is happening? And Picard is off having his there are four lights moment. Jellico comes in and is just like, there are things about this that I don't like. I don't like a three rotation schedule. I prefer a four. I think that Troy should be wearing a uniform. I think there are things about this ship that are maybe a little sloppy, and I'm going to tighten them up. And people are just like, who does this guy think he is? He's just a different captain. By the end of that episode, you're left with the, oh, he leaves. And you're like, we're not supposed to hate him. And this guy has humanity written all over him.

And I really like the depth of this character. Matt Ferrell: Oh, I do, too. The one thing. I mean, obviously he's reflective of some of the things we're seeing in our society today. Yeah, maybe I'm reading into it. I don't think I am. But there is. But they don't present him in a mustache twirling. Oh, he's the baddie that you're just going to love to hate. It's a. He's a very complex human being that clearly has good sides to him, good aspects, and you can understand why he got to be a captain and all that kind of stuff. And even though there's this other thing that's swirling around him that's a he didn't earn his admiralship in the way we think he did. He's still a complex, likable, understandable character once you start to understand where he's coming from. So I really did like that they gave him depth and didn't just make him the evil Admiral that comes in and starts throwing things around.

Sean Ferrell: And I think it is likely that if he had gotten his way, if he had used the Enterprise to destroy the life on the planet, I think it is likely that within the context of the program, the events that led up to that would have been heavily debated within Starfleet about whether or not he made the right call. Because as they reveal, one of the reasons that he may have been given his admiralty is to get him out of command. Because people higher up were like, we needed a hero for this war. We got a hero out of him. To now judge him according to criteria that didn't help the war effort. Maybe we shouldn't do that. So let's just get him out of command and we'll put him into an admiral seat. The episode does a pretty good job of saying, history would have judged this guy. He would have been painted a little bit differently after doing what he wanted to do, and maybe even have borne the consequences of doing something that may have been deemed as illegal in that moment. So I think it leaves it up for debate. Like his. His actions are debatable. And the episode lets you know that his episodes are his. His actions are debatable. Without saying, like you said, he's not mustache twirling. They give you the mustache twirling villain in this one in a really nice way. In the Andorian on the planet who is clearly like, I'm going to steal your ship now. Thank you. Like, like all of that is played out as. It's like a balancing act in the episode to say, like, yeah, this is what pure villainy looks like. This is what complexity looks like. And what does complexity bear? Complexity bears the. All the things we talked about.

When is it okay to follow an order? When is it not? How do you recognize the enemy? What do you do if the enemy is using the innocent as a shield? How do you recognize your moral responsibility to maybe let the bad guy go simply because you need to be the good guy? Somebody needs to be the good guy. Somebody needs to stand up. And sometimes that means making the hard decision not to act, as opposed to damn the torpedoes full speed ahead. So I think this episode does all of that so well. We've talked about this in previous episodes. I don't want to go back and relitigate the boy. They can do this. Why don't they do it all the time? Like, we've talked about it and we've talked about it, and I think that this episode and our analysis of it feels like we've said all of that already. So I would just say, like, this is one of those episodes of Strange New Worlds that I would happily rewatch. And I would happily rewatch. I'm going to be visiting Matt over this weekend and maybe I can convince him that we watch this episode on his giant television screen, which is literally the size of a wall. Like this. This, to me, felt like a fun episode to rewatch and to rewatch again, like all of the best ones, because this one for me was right up there with, with off hour. Like, boy, when they, when they hit, when they get a hit, they knock it out of the park. Yeah, they do such a great job. So viewers, listeners, do agree with us. I hope you do, but if you don't, we'd love to hear why. Like, let us know in the comments. Even those of you who might say like, ah, this one didn't do it for me because of these reasons, jump into the comments. Let us know. As always, liking subscribing, sharing with your friends, commenting. Those are all very easy ways for you to support the podcast. If you'd like to support us more directly, you can go to trekintime Show.

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